What do you think of as SAD?

Question speaks for itself, I think. There is such a wide range of diets in this country, but when you refer to SAD, what is it that you think of? A diet that is in compliance with the USDA food pyramid? One that consists primarily of processed foods? Fast food and takeout? What do you consider "processed"? For example, I used to think of Oreos as something "processed, but now I tend to think of 2% milk as too processed to be considered healthy to eat on a regular basis. When you picture the SAD, what does it look like? Vegetarianism is certainly a common dietary choice in this country, but would you consider it SAD? Or, is SAD shorthand for anything that does not necessarily fall into the paleo paradigm? Is a bowl of minestrone soup and half a turkey breast sandwich on whole wheat bread just as unhealthily SAD as the Grand Slam Special at Dennys? Is all SAD equally poor?

I don't think there is a general fear of fat or else people wouldn't be consuming fast food. The only people afraid are the more "health conscious" ones, or believers in the food pyramid. More than half the people I know don't give a rats ass about the food pyramid.

Milk hormones and Suzanne Somers....hmmm where ARE we going with this....next stop silicone junction?
I've got the SFD on my brain too. The land of Cocagne, bread cheese and wine. Home to Lascaux but no longer connected to it.
But ooh that duck. Just a little more of that liver with the confit please.

yes, thats a great point. the fat phobia (which i think many of us have been a victim of) and therefore fat avoidance prevents people from ever feeling satiated, so they seek out what i call the "filler foods" because they arent really food at all. i also tend to think of SAD as a way of thinking rather than doing, and the thing i find impresses me most about american eating habits over some other cultures is how emotional it is, and the entanglement of sin, virtue and shame around every food-event.

The first point (fat avoidance) is inextricably linked to some of the other things. If fat wasn't bad for you, people wouldn't be so egg and bacon shy. If fat didn't necessarily make you fat, what would? Maybe empty calories in soda? That might be why Gary Taubes, while not explicitly paleo, converted so many people to paleo.

I could have been wrong about the coconut oil - but I was thinking about my great granddaddy who ate bread, liverwurst and scotch and pretty much nothing else. Lived to 100. Not at all scientific, but those old timey "SAD" foods may not have been half bad:)

yes, thats a great point. the fat phobia (which i think many of us have been a victim of) and therefore fat avoidance prevents people from ever feeling satiated, so they seek out what i call the "filler foods" because they arent really food at all. i also tend to think of SAD as a way of thinking rather than doing, and the thing i find impresses me most about american eating habits over some other cultures is how emotional it is, and the entanglement of sin, virtue and shame around every food-event.

The first point (fat avoidance) is inextricably linked to some of the other things. If fat wasn't bad for you, people wouldn't be so egg and bacon shy. If fat didn't necessarily make you fat, what would? Maybe empty calories in soda? That might be why Gary Taubes, while not explicitly paleo, converted so many people to paleo.

I don't think there is a general fear of fat or else people wouldn't be consuming fast food. The only people afraid are the more "health conscious" ones, or believers in the food pyramid. More than half the people I know don't give a rats ass about the food pyramid.

Good golly, everything is SAD these days. My damned meat's all injected with who knows what. My veggies are coated in poison. My milk's pumped with more hormones than Suzanne Sommers. To top it all off, all of their genes have been rearranged.

I'd eat old fashioned packaged "SAD" foods over much of the "paleo" foods available at the supermarket. Oreos used to be made with coconut oil. Ice cream used to not have seaweed thickeners. Friggin'potato chips used to be fried in lard!

But, to get to the question, I saw a kid at swim lessons this morning eating a deep fried corndog from a street vendor. I think that's way worse than my "Sexy Years" shot of milk I put in my coffee.

Milk hormones and Suzanne Somers....hmmm where ARE we going with this....next stop silicone junction?
I've got the SFD on my brain too. The land of Cocagne, bread cheese and wine. Home to Lascaux but no longer connected to it.
But ooh that duck. Just a little more of that liver with the confit please.

I could have been wrong about the coconut oil - but I was thinking about my great granddaddy who ate bread, liverwurst and scotch and pretty much nothing else. Lived to 100. Not at all scientific, but those old timey "SAD" foods may not have been half bad:)

While i'm a full believer in eating mostly paleo, what I consider "SAD" diet would be a diet consisting mostly of processed foods, foods not lovingly cooked, food not enjoyed, food harming your body, food being a barrier to a happy existence. It's not something one person can define for the next person. I know a lot of vegans, vegetarians, meat eaters, grain eaters, etc. (un-paleo) that live a full, happy, vibrant healthy life without many of the health problems associated with those who seem to eat a mostly processed variety (or non variety) of foods. So to me SAD is more associated with foods that don't work for you personally. I know my personal triggers, I do my best to stay away from them and since doing that I am much better for it. But I don't obsess about it. Obsession with perfection would make me "SAD" the other way as well.

Hmmm...I think there are varying degrees of SAD. We have the skinny yoga-marathon chicks who eat whole grains, veggies, nonfat milk, lean protein, etc., and then we have people consuming a huge bowl of alfredo pasta (made with soybean oil, no doubt) with a few pieces of broccoli, and then patting themselves in the back for eating vegetables (I used to do this, haha--also, with pizza: "my pizza had MUSHROOMS on it...YAY"). As a general rule, I consider low (healthy) fats, high carbs (w/ a large percentage as fructose), processed food to be SAD, though the inclusion of gluten grains or overindulgence of any type of grain automatically taints a diet as "SAD" IMO.

The Standard American Diet is a big umbrella. I definitely don't think it's all equally poor. Do you? It is becoming ever more processed and it seems like everything is fake - even simple stuff is complicated. (I just spent some time at my mom's house and the plain ol' regular store-brand Low-Fat Cottage Cheese she had in the fridge had about a million ingredients including artificial color! wtf.) I think the move away from standard eating correlates to the amount of label-reading one is willing to do.

Vegetarianism can't really be considered SAD b/c it's not standard, but I guess it kind of overlaps if you're a boxed-food/pizza/soda vegetarian like I was when I was younger.